


a tide before the flickering sun

by perbe



Category: Pandora Hearts
Genre: M/M, eldritch au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-29
Updated: 2014-11-29
Packaged: 2018-02-27 10:53:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2690150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perbe/pseuds/perbe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A foray into the woods goes wrong when Elliot steps into a fairy ring and vanishes into thin air. When "thin air" turns out to be a synonym for another world...well...things get tricky.</p><p>(A modern-day eldritch AU.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	a tide before the flickering sun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gugeta](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gugeta/gifts).



> Dear Geta, would you like to go on a fern flower hunt with me? Wink wonk.  
> Try not to get too wasted on your 18th.

i paint you a picture

but it never looks right

cause i fill in the shadows

and block out the light

;;;

“I swear it’s right around the bend—we can’t miss it—“

Elliot scoffs. “I’ll believe it if I see it. Anyway, how’d you even find it? No one’s supposed to come out here.”

Oz stops in his tracks. His breath is barely visible against the sugar-powder snow. “I was exploring with Gil. Besides, Mr. Goody-Two-Shoes, you’re here too.”

Elliot shoves his hands into his pockets with more force than necessary, flushing. “I’m here to prove a point. We’re not even near any hot springs, so I don’t see how there can be anything that hasn’t frozen over.”

“You looked pretty convinced when I told you,” Oz says. “Does the big bad Elliot believe in fairies? That’s cute. I used to think there were fairies too. Ada and I looked for fairy rings all the time. When I was ten, I got Uncle Oscar to burn a circle in the ground and I made Gil step in it. His face—“

“I don’t know why Gil still talks to you,” Elliot says, flinching away despite himself. Just because he didn’t like what Oz had to say didn’t mean it wasn’t true; more often than not, he hears the strangest things—soft sounds like bare feet over moss. Sometimes a song from the gloam. Oz would never let him hear the end of it if he knew. “And I don’t know why I talk to you either. All you ever do is bully my brother and drag me along to find—oh, I don’t know. God damn fairy rings.”

It seems as if Oz has been waiting for this. “The Magical Zoology Club was your idea.”

 “It was _your sister’s_ idea, you idiot. I was dragged into it because you were convinced I had some sort of—some sort of— _affair_ with her.” Elliot clears his throat as if to rid himself of the aftertaste of his less than triumphant freshman year at Saint Lutwidge’s. Then, because he doesn’t quite succeed, he throws a handful of snow in Oz’s direction.

Oz yelps. “Hey! That wasn’t fair—I wasn’t ready!”

Elliot tries very hard not to laugh and barely succeeds. “Come on already, Vessalius. Take me to your stupid fairy ring.”

“You’re serious?”

“Do it before I change my mind,” Elliot mumbles, his flush creeping to his ears. “You wouldn’t stop talking about it, but I’m sure I can find some other way to stop you.”

Oz beams. He stretches his arms over his head and does some sort of caveman impersonation, kicking up snow as he skips down the forest trail. Elliot casts a glance back, in the direction of Lutwidge. They’re far enough into the woods so that he can see the tallest tower with its sea-foam-green old copper roof. The sight ought to be comforting, yet they are far enough so that the maples and oaks and occasional evergreens tread the threshold of inviting and foreboding—the way back and the guard against it. When the sun sets, each patch of snow will look like the next.  Besides, curfew is in two hours.

“Aren’t you coming, Elliot?” Oz asks. He’s still fairly bubbling with excitement—paused mid-skip, green eyes glittering.

(Ice on pine needles.)

Elliot makes himself walk down the path.

“Yeah.”

;;;

“Oz.”

“Hm.”

“We’ve been walking for an hour.”

“Hm.”

Elliot sighs and tries to stop watching the second hand chase the minute hand toward four o’clock. They’ve barely time to walk back to Lutwidge before dark, let alone find whatever place Oz keeps going on about. “You said it was just around the bend.”

Oz looks at him apologetically. “I really thought it was. I’d get it if you want to go back. I wanted to show it to you.”

“Right,” Elliot says, somehow keeping the sarcasm out of his voice. Oz picks up so easily on things like that. “So let’s go back. We should have been back in the dorm building already—“

Oz lets out a whoop of delight. “I see it! Look, it’s right there!”

And so it was. There are leaves of grass curling out of the snow at Elliot’s feet. Further away, they gather around clusters of foxgloves and bone-white birches and a creek lounging against the wildflowers. The first traces of orange spill across the horizon, but their warm goes undiluted by the November air. It is summer, Elliot realizes, in the way summer almost never smells or looks. Or sounds; there are no birds, no crickets.

The grass and wildflowers stretches on for as far as Elliot can see. It’s as if the forest’s been divided evenly into two seasons. It’s odd, he thinks, considering he’s never heard anything about this place. He’s certain a boarding school choke-full of stir-crazy teenagers would have found the place by now. Instead, there’s only Oz and Gil, who only found the place yesterday.

There is a voice coming from somewhere in the oasis—the same voice that weaves through so many of his dreams. Elliot makes to touch a bluebell. Oz wrestles his hand away. “Hey, Elliot,” he says. “I think maybe we shouldn’t do that.”

Elliot looks at his hand—pink from the cold, white where Oz grips it too tightly. “You’re being ridiculous.” He makes himself sound like he believes it. “It’s not like anything’s going to happen. It’s a fucking _bluebell_.”

“I don’t know. I can’t explain it. It’s different from yesterday.”

“I won’t step in a fairy ring if that’s what you’re worried about,” Elliot says, brushing Oz’s hand off and stepping into the grass. The bluebells offer no warning tolls—ridiculous, he tells himself—he’s so spooked by everything nowadays. “I’m here already, so I might as well take a closer look. Nothing happened to you and Gil.”

Oz grins at him, all signs of nervousness gone. “I can’t believe you didn’t fall for that,” he complains. “Normally I’d have you by now.”

 _Oh come on_. Elliot turns around to face Oz. Anger, always so ready to jump to his throat, laces into his voice. “Was that what it was, Vessalius? You know I’ve been jumpy. I can’t believe you’d actually—“

“Elliot! An actual fairy ring!” Oz says, at the same time Elliot’s heel brushes past one of the red toadstools and sinks into the grass within.

“It’s only fungi growing out,” Elliot starts. But he never gets to finish his sentence, because that’s when it happens.

There is no flash of light, no eddy of smoke. Elliot stands half-in, half-out the circle of toadstools in one second. In the next, he is gone. 

 


End file.
